It's hard to make money as a directory service with Google and Apple Maps around. The shadier they get, the bigger of a sign it is that they're in trouble financially, I would think.
Apple maps relies on Yelp for review information.
Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
211–220 of 461 posts
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#212Yelp is such a slimy company. First they wall off their mobile web reviews to try to force you to download their POS app, they have the whole extortion racket going trying to strongarm restaurants into paying for advertising, and now this. Friendly reminder - if you are on mobile and trying to read a Yelp review and don't want to download their app, simply hold refresh, click "request desktop site" and it will load t…
https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Does-Yelp-extort-small-... I've kind of gotten tired of diving into the whole "yelp extorted my brother's cousin's friend's coworker's business for better ratings" anecdotal story schtick so I'm just going to link the above -- or are you suggesting they're getting away with lying on official communication? If yelp is altering reviews for paying clients, please show the evidence as…
Don't want to edit my previous comment, but I just realized that you're listing one particular scam that you allege they're not running, while they're running another totally different shitty scam.
This is the equivalent of "why are you mad, I didn't take your wallet" as you're riding off on my bicycle.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#213I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant. Immediately uninstalled. I don't see why people use Yelp other than the fact that they have a mindshare dominance on ratings. User generated/internet 2.0 style food ratings are basically useless anyway, add in all of the other shady stuff Yelp does and you have a hard pass from me.
I use Yelp since its significantly harder to fake reviews on it than it is on Google. That, and the community culture is centered on high-quality reviews.
I've seen plenty of yelp reviews that look like they came from a competing restaurant, I don't think its any harder to fake reviews since the impetus is on people reporting reviews anyway.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#214Yelp is such a slimy company. First they wall off their mobile web reviews to try to force you to download their POS app, they have the whole extortion racket going trying to strongarm restaurants into paying for advertising, and now this. Friendly reminder - if you are on mobile and trying to read a Yelp review and don't want to download their app, simply hold refresh, click "request desktop site" and it will load t…
Yelp always says that they don't delete bad reviews for companies that pay them, which I think is true - they just hide the bad reviews behind all sorts of harder to find links so most people won't see them and take them out of the aggregate.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#215I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant. Immediately uninstalled. I don't see why people use Yelp other than the fact that they have a mindshare dominance on ratings. User generated/internet 2.0 style food ratings are basically useless anyway, add in all of the other shady stuff Yelp does and you have a hard pass from me.
The whole VC-funded industrial complex and their bad behaviours will start collapsing rapidly within 10 years - their bad behaviour and tactics have just gone on for too long; it could be faster, hard to predict exponentials.
Call me a cynic, but why should it stop if it works for the VCs? They don't care about the product or the devs or the users experience, just their return. Plenty of things on this world are absolutely abhorrent but continue to this day because they make someone good money.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't necessarily frame that as an inevitability of Dropbox as a product, as much as an inevitability of the traditional VC funding model. It's likely you could build a very healthy business selling people file syncing — I personally use a tiny minimalist Dropbox competitor that seems to be doing just fine. The hypergrowth demanded by investors when you take on $1.7B in funding is what's the challenge.
> The hypergrowth demanded by investors when you take on $1.7B in funding is what's the challenge. This. The local pizza joint is probably a great family operated business with a enough profit to support the owners + employees (but probably not enough profit to support the owners, employees AND investors). If you take that same pizza joint and give them $10m from investors, the pizza joint will attempt to franchise t…
I agree although your example hinges on scalability where Dropbox hinges on simplicity that is at odds with growth.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#217It feels as though much of tech has gone from helping people accomplish their goals efficiently to a business model of extracting rents while providing no or little value. In this example, what benefit is GrubHub providing to anyone? The person used Yelp solely to look up the phone number of a restaurant. GrubHub deserves 15% of his order for that? Why, because they made a deal to give X% of it to Yelp, and convinced…
If somebody is willing to pay the GrubHub fee, then they’re worth it. Really basic supply and demand, even if you personally don’t find the service useful. Yelp is still my go-to as an index of nearby restaurants and bars.
> If somebody is willing to pay the GrubHub fee, then they’re worth it
That's why they're tacking it on without warning
> Yelp Is Sneakily Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Number So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Some companies simply aren't meant to be billion dollar companies, yet raise money as if they will be. Well, according to some quick searches the founders seem to be doing pretty alright by themselves. It depends if your objective for founding a company is "do something useful" or "get filthy rich as soon as possible"
If you take venture funding - by definition you’re not trying to run a lifestyle business - your only goal is an exit strategy.
When I did my (one, never again if I can help it) venture funded startup, "the only goal is an exit strategy" came up a lot, and always when one of the founders talked about a growth opportunity that would pay off over years and not months.
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
> tiny minimalist Dropbox competitor what is it? I'm lookin for alternatives
I heard you can do it quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.
what is this 1992
Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut
#220It feels as though much of tech has gone from helping people accomplish their goals efficiently to a business model of extracting rents while providing no or little value. In this example, what benefit is GrubHub providing to anyone? The person used Yelp solely to look up the phone number of a restaurant. GrubHub deserves 15% of his order for that? Why, because they made a deal to give X% of it to Yelp, and convinced…
To me, this is a sign of grubhub/insert copycat delivery service circling the drain, trying to extract whatever cash they can get before the inevitable. Anecdata, but among my peers people sort by delivery fee or try to game the system for a new user discount. Delivery fees can easily be $7 now which is like buying another entire portion at some restaurants.
Personally, I use grubhub a lot--as a menu to look at for when I call the restaurant directly with my pickup order.